Just wanted to try that may be DVD Fab back up software and a very forgiving DVD player may succeed in backing up my DCH Spark DVD that doesnot play otherwise. If it succeeds, it's less hassle than trying to find where to get an exchange if possible at all.

I set the settings to "Ignore All Reading Errors" and keep trying 4 times at each failure. As expected, first hour succeded in just 20 min but after that it slowed down. It ketp on getting slower and slower. Finally after hacking it for 15 - 20 hours, it progressed to roughly 120 min mark. There definitely are errors, but is the back uop playable?? To my surprise, it was playable. Only problem is that after running it for 15-20 hrs, the speed at which it was backing up, it would have taken more than 100 hrs (progress @ 3 MB per hour or 1000 hrs for remaining 3 GB ). And then PC gave up (overheat or windows crashed).

BTW, did succeed in backing up problematic Evening in Paris and MHN (one chapter failed in MHN back up)

for the time and effort spent = 20 copies of DCH if one last 1 year then you buy others at that one year interval you have enough for your lifetime

Exactly.

My reason for posting was just to share my experince showing the power of PC DVD backup hardware/ software. DCH had the worst rot and still the PC hardware/ software managed to get the info out, even if at a snail's pace. Had it succeeded in backing up in 10 hrs or so, then it's not that bad as you can let the PC do the work overnight.

I had mixed experience in backing up. Some worked (30 min), some with errors, some in 5-10 hrs, some not at all. BTW, no way I'll keep my PC running for 1000 hrs, just to back up a DVD. Free replacement under guarantee is the cheapest followed by buying. Buying same DVD every year is fine, but there is no guarantee, you will get same original quality.

there's no guarantee in life either but we deteriorate and still keep living for a while longer

Making a back up of the Spark Soven DCH DVD requires too much effort. While I have no problem leaving my computer on to do it since I work IT, the fear would be the compression ratio which would affect the print quality unless I had a friend who owned a dual layer DVD burner.

If my friend still worked for Sony I would have bought the DCH DVD cuz he was more than happy to burn the disc and put it on a SONY industrial grade DVD disk, meaning an exact copy of the original DVD with no compression or etc.

But Sony layed off people before DCH came out. I'm happy with my Sony DCH DVD from India.

Glad you were able to get your DCH DVD into your computer's hard disk. How much compression will you have to apply to get it on a DVD+R or DVD-R, etc..

I did not succeed from my copy of Spark DCH. When all other players refused to play it in a contineos way, PC back up was working, but extremely extremely slowly that eventually my PC gave up and me too. From my copy, it really would have taken more than 1000 hrs. A newer disc sure will work (30 min) and it's backup will last much longer than the orig DCH discs of the past.

Data compression: Using 'DVD Fab' or other similar programs, there doesn't have to be any data compression as we can split and then record on 2 DVD Rs.

Have you tried the new DVD Shrink 3.2? It includes options such as Maximum sharpeness or smoothness, I tried it and it seems to be much better than previous versions and compression doesnt show up as much.

Sorry if I sound like I am endorsing DVD Shrink But hey its free and I am a cheap skate when it comes to Hindi DVDs

I use DVD Shrink ... although I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to burning DVDs. One of the problems I have is not knowing how to split a title over 2 discs. This looks easy to do using DVD Fab ... is it possible with DVD Shrink?

It is very easy Muz ... click on reauthor and drag the main feature over to the directory window for DVD. Above that there will be an icon, similar to below:

<--
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Click on it and from here select the last chapter you want on the first disc, 30 chapters and you want 15 chapters per disc, 1st chapter is also selected but you need to select chapter 15 as the last chapter. Once shrunk open the disc again and select reauthor again and drag the main feature over to the directory window for DVD again. Click on the the icon again to select start and end chapters. This time the start chapter will be 16 and the end chapter will be 30. If you want I can give you some screen grabs later I am work right now, but I also believe DVD Shrink website has guides for this as well:

http://www.dvdshrink.info

yo bro where is that option i've d/l the latest version but when i go to preferences i don't see an tab for quality settings atleast not on the one i've got pls advise !!!

Hey Asif Miyan,

When you click on Backup and the small window with options opens, I cant remember the tab name but the one with the deep analysis option is where the maximum sharpness and other settings is located.

YEAH YEAH i think i know where u mean bro it just that i was looking at it from the moment u open the programme and not when u're about to backup silly me !!!

cheers dude will give it a go later this week when i get hold of either JULIE (literally would be nice !!!) or/and GAYAB.

thanks once again

No prob Asif Miyan!

I backed up Main Madhuri Bana ... and it came pretty damn good compared to earlier Shrink versions.

Regarding Julie, did you see the XViD shots I posted in the Julie thread? I downloaded the VideoSound version of the DVD from http://bollywoodtorrents.com pretty good!

yeah dude they were very good...to be honest i can't be arsed to wait for a d/l depending on the speed it could be a few hrs or days...and then to watch on pc which to date i have never done or to burn onto dvdr and then to have a player that plays divx/xvid its just so much easier to rent and rip !!!

I agree with you ... but I convert the Divx/XViD to DVD format, create chapters and menus with TMPGEnc and then burn to DVD. My Panasonic RP81 has been able to play everything so far...